Time travel: The fine line between fiction and reality

I read an interesting article in the newspaper a few days ago which got me thinking. I would like to quote this article here so that you understand just how easily a single action can change the course of history.

“On October 14, 1914, a 27-year-old Private Henry Tandey of Warwickshire had a German soldier in his line of fire. The German soldier was wounded and did not even attempt to raise his own rifle. Tandey chose not to shoot. The German soldier saw him lower his rifle and nodded his thanks before wandering off.

This man was Adolf Hitler.”

As you can see, had this Private shot him, history would have taken another course altogether. But is it possible to somehow change what happened? Is it possible to somehow tell Pvt. Tandey that no good deed goes unpunished?

 Well, sadly, the answer is no. For several decades, scientists have been asked whether time travel to the past is possible. But the answer has remained negative. This is because of three reasons-

• ·        If one intends to travel back in time to a period where his younger self exists, it violates several key principles of Modern Physics. The same matter cannot exist in the same time frame at the same time.
• ·        Secondly, even if somehow the previous point is dodged and the time traveler manages to change something in his past, the event will take place no matter what. In layman’s terms, “It is supposed to happen.”

       What this means is that even IF Hitler had been KIA in 1914, someone else would have risen to take his place decades later. Someone, perhaps Joseph Goebbels (Propaganda Minister) or Himmler or Goring would have been one of the key architects of World War II. This is of course speculation but the fact is- an event which HAS already happened, will continue to happen no matter what change is introduced. Obviously, the basis of the second point is merely a hypothesis because the first point ALWAYS holds true. Time travel to the past is impossible.

• ·        Thirdly, if one intends to travel back in time to a period much before he was born, this would in effect mean- the reaction preceded the action. Simply put, the man existed before he was born. This again, is impossible.

It is for this reason that whenever we talk about Time Travel, we talk about travelling to the future and nothing else because it is physically possible. The only thing we CAN do with the past is observe it, from another frame. If we could somehow travel to a planet millions of light years away from Earth and then observe every tiny detail on Earth from there, we would see Earth as it was millions of years ago.